The Infects Page 2

  Nick had worked at Rebozzo’s for three years and was pretty sure he had never come for the meat.

  “Mr. Sole!”

  Jett Ballou, wearing a trench coat, sweats, and fingerless gloves, walked over and held out his knuckles.

  Nick bumped them. “Mr. Ballou.”

  Next to Jett was a girl who was often next to Jett.

  Petal Gazes.

  A shock to the system, every single time.

  If only because Nick couldn’t understand why she worked at Rebozzo’s instead of behind a nice clean counter blending smoothies or selling perfume or folding tank tops.

  Nick Sole, Mall Human Resources.

  “Hey,” he said, looking at his feet.

  “Hey,” Petal answered. She was thin, with a shock of white hair that hung over half her face. The other side of her head was shaved, highlighting eyes so large they made her look half anime. She wore a black hoodie with BAUHAUS written on the front in duct tape, American flag cowboy boots, and a Carhartt jacket three sizes too big. In other words: exactly, down to the inch, down to the atom, in every possible way, the girl Nick had been dreaming of since he’d first discovered himself in the bathtub at age eleven.

  Half punk, half shy, smart as hell.

  Weird, but not trying to be.

  Lips offset in a kiss-me pout.

  Like she’d just stepped out of a graphic novel about sexy apocalypses.

  “I dig your earring,” Nick said.

  It was a gold hoop with a long white feather hanging from it.

  Petal blushed. “Actually, it’s kind of a joke. You know, working here? A feather?”

  Shit.

  “Yeah, I get it. Totally.”

  “Obviously,” Ballou said.

  Petal turned away, unhooked the earring, and slipped it into her pocket. Jett stretched and yawned, pretending to soak in the night air. The shift horn went off. Rolling gates slammed shut around the parking lot. A belch of smoke wafted from one of the exhaust vents. The line of workers seemed to sag in unison.

  “It smells,” Petal said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Worse than usual?” Nick asked, stepping downwind. Reeking like beaks at school was a given, no matter how much he scrubbed, all through class hoping no sudden movement would punch a hole in his fog of Irish Spring.

  But shift funk was something else entirely.

  “It’s me,” Ballou said, raising one arm. “Max Body Spray. Ocean Cinnamon. Just bought it.”

  “Gross,” Petal said.

  “Seriously,” Nick said.

  “Shaddup,” said a guy in a hard hat behind them as the line began to move. “The three of you.”

  “Sorry,” Nick said.

  “Sorry,” Petal said.

  “Eat me,” Ballou said.

  People began to push forward. Nick untangled his earbuds as they laid their stuff on the X-ray belt. In a second Petal was going to walk away. He needed a good line. Something easy and smooth, a joke or part of a lyric. But he had nothing. His mind was a shiny Scrabble tile, a total reflective blank, like the Dude grinning at the wall after a major wake-and-bake.

  Moron.

  “Nick?” Petal said, snapping her fingers.

  They stopped in front of the men’s locker room.

  “Yeah?”

  “I have something for you.”

  “What?”

  She reached up and slid her arms around his shoulders.

  Pulling him into a full-on hug.

  White hair against his cheek.

  Tiptoe, sigh, thigh against thigh.

  Workers streamed around them, making comments, whistling, slapping Nick’s back.

  It was the third-best thing he’d ever felt, transported to some place where paychecks didn’t even exist, the smell of scrubbed vanilla and musty jacket and shocking pink.

  “Happy birthday,” she whispered, then let go and hurried toward the packing department as the final siren went off.

  Nick changed in record time, with a massive shit eater of a grin stapled to his face.

  “Ready to toil, son?” Ballou asked, now all in white, sneakers to shower cap.

  Nick was ready for anything, feeling ridiculously suave in his antibacterial slippers and hairnet, sporting the same Guns N’ Roses T-shirt for God knows how many shifts, Axl smelling even worse than he probably did in person.

  “You know it, kid,” he said as they headed out onto the killing floor.

  WIN FULD, PLANT MANAGER, STOOD BY NICK’S station with his arms crossed, wearing a baby-blue V-neck and khakis belted just below the armpits. The Dude once said, “Captain Fuld looks like something you’d poke with a stick after it washed up on the beach.” He was soft and pale, with thick glasses, random white hairs zagging off his scalp, and a bow tie covered with his own initials, WF.

  Also, he had no lips.

  “A talk in my office, Mr. Sole?”

  “Later,” Ballou said, peeling away.

  “Yessir.”

  Nick followed Win Fuld down a dark hallway, past break rooms and utility closets and secretaries’ cubicles, positive he was fired.

  POSSIBLE CRIMES:

  1. Snicker-theft

  2. Existential bird guilt

  3. Sublimated Jayna lust

  4. Dogging it on the beak crimper

  5. Being a Sole

  Nick was no slacker on shift but did (1) occasionally hook candy bars out of the office vending machine with a clothes hanger, (2) cringe midshift at the remote possibility of bird purgatory, and (3) find himself lingering too long in the stairwell after lunch, hoping to get a glimpse of Jayna Layne, the most pneumatic cougar in processing, as she shimmied each milfy curve back into her rubber apron. Not to mention (4) beaks being self-explanatory and (5) the legacy of the Dude.

  But were those canning offenses?

  Win Fuld just stared.

  Nick wished he had the cojones to stare back. To go deep badass, put his feet up on the desk and say, “Pull the plug, Fuld, you ancient turd. Payroll knows where to send my check — the same place as my father’s severance!” But the Nick who could pull that action off was a galaxy away from the one sweating a pink slip on a sticky office chair. That Nick had zero leather running through his veins. Zero gats tucked in his belt. There was no silk do-rag or rumbling Ducati in his future, no sixteen-year-old French model to run away to Cuba and smoke Marlboro Reds petulantly with.

  There was just reality.

  Rent. Amanda’s meds. Anything and everything that needed tending under the shaggy banner of Dudedom.

  Real life was about gripping ankle and saying thank you. Attitude was for beautiful hackers and downtown Crips and overly sampled rock stars.

  “Sir, it will never happen again.”

  “What will never happen again?”

  “Nothing.”

  Win Fuld smiled. His teeth were the color of yolk.

  “Nick, you may have heard that we’ve been experimenting with a new product for our connoisseur division.”

  Nick had heard. And had immediately forgotten, because he so didn’t give a shit. New products came down the line all the time. They replaced old products. Change the name, change the package, batter was batter, dip was dip.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The Rebozzo Fryer has completed testing stages and is now ready to go to market.”

  “The Rebozzo Fryer?”

  “The future of gourmet-quality chicken, Nick. A new generation of bird. A product of impeccable quality and taste.”

  “Chicken has a future?”

  “And so we need a new head butcher to work in the Blue Room.”

  “I understand,” Nick said, although he totally, completely didn’t. The Blue Room had been under construction all year, hidden behind huge drapes that hung from the rafters. There were DANGER — NO ENTRANCE signs plastered over all the doors. Guys on the line were taking bets that it was going to be a new lounge for the managers (10–1). Or a managers’ racquetball club (7–1). Or a managers
’ group shower (3–2). Either way, no one had been allowed in. Yet.

  “And we want that butcher to be you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Um, like, me me, or —?”

  “Are you interested, Mr. Sole, or not?”

  Nick wanted to run outside and do a lap around the parking lot. He wasn’t getting fired! He wanted to knock on the guard booth and kiss Danny Sorrel’s fat belly. A promotion! Mostly, he wanted to lie down on the office carpet and weep with relief. It smells down here!

  But something kept him from shouting out an answer.

  Like the fact that Win Fuld could have lobbed a dart between shifts and hit at least forty guys with more experience. With better leadership skills. Who would never consider spelling skills skillz. Dudes who needed to shave more than twice a week, had late Camry payments and a stocked wet bar in their rec rooms.

  Honestly? Even Jett Ballou was a better choice.

  “You have a question?”

  “Yessir. Why aren’t we allowed to talk about the Blue Room?”

  Win Fuld smiled, pure halibut, and then gestured toward the door. “Nicky boy, that’s exactly the kind of question makes me think I chose the wrong person. It’s funny, though. I was sure you’d be interested in pay slot nine.”

  “What slot what?”

  “Your new compensation rate. Or, rather, what would have been your new compensation rate.”

  Nick pictured the Dude flipping channels as he scratched between his dreads, pretending not to be amazed. “Fuld gave you a raise?”

  Nick pictured Amanda, delirious over a stack of brand-new Palmbot discs. “Nick? Thank you? Really?”

  Nick pictured Nick, newly titled and with a pocket bulge of cash, bending Jayna Layne over an apron bucket in the laundry room.

  “Just out of curiosity, sir, what would that rate be?”

  Win Fuld pretended to consult a chart. “Pay slot nine, associate poultry conversion facilitator, stipulates a raise of five and change. Which will nudge you from six to just over eleven dollars per hour.”

  “Consider me nudged, sir.”

  “So you’re taking the job?”

  “I’m taking the job.”

  Win Fuld clapped his hands, slipped Nick a hundred-dollar bill and a cigar, and then led him across the cutting floor. The nightie crew stared, Ballou making faces next to Petal, who was pretending not to look up from under her bandana. The Blue Room had four locks and six bolts and a thumbprint sensor. The door slid aside with a suctiony sound, like Captain Kirk hitting the release that opens a portal back to dinosaur times. Inside was large and pristine, more like a laboratory than an assembly line. The lights were low, except over the butcher station, which was set up for one. A rack of gleaming deboning knives, never used, waited. The reticulating saw, joint snippers, and Dynablade were all top-of-the-line. All stainless steel. All brand-new.

  “And this whole room is just for one person?”

  Win Fuld did a little jazz-hands thing —“Ta-da!”— before hitting the auto-load button. Rebozzo Fryers began to fill the belt like he’d fired a starter’s pistol. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

  The birds came rolling through the chute, untouched.

  They were not beautiful.

  They were chickens.

  “Knives only?” Nick asked.

  Usually machines did most of the breaking down.

  “Our tech teams haven’t calibrated the gears to handle the Mach IIIs yet, so we’re going old school for now.”

  Fo’ shizzle, Win?

  The new chickens did seem much larger and plumper than the usual batch. No disease spots or rough patches or weepy yellow whatever-it-was caked all over their backs. They were strong and healthy. Even muscular. Like they’d been hitting the iron, benching two-twenty, doing circuit training and cardio.

  “Enough sightseeing. Are you ready, son?”

  “Born ready, sir.”

  “Just like your father, eh? Ambition running hot in the blood?”

  “I guess.”

  Win Fuld put his hands where his hips should have been. “How’s he doing, anyway?”

  An image of the Dude arguing with the microwave rose in Nick’s frontal lobe.

  “Fantastic.”

  “Good man. Top-notch researcher.”

  “I’ll tell him you said so.”

  Win Fuld winked. A tiny drop of something brown, like chocolate syrup, dribbled out of his ear. He wiped it with one finger and then spread it on his pants.

  “Please do. And with that, I shall leave you to it.”

  The door closed with a hermetic swoosh, and then Nick was alone.

  He slipped on his apron and selected a knife, the one he’d briefly considered sinking into Win Fuld’s kidney.

  And then put in a full week.

  Four ten-hour shifts.

  Being conversion facilitator meant that he now had lunch alone, in a totally empty cafeteria. He also had break alone, in a totally empty break room. He made coffee for ten — since that’s the only way the machine worked — and poured coffee for eight down the pristine drain. It was like being in deep orbit. But at the end of shifts, he still went out the gate like anyone else, the other nighties razzing him all the way across the lot. They called him Win’s Boy and Fuld Candy and Soul for Hire. Jett Ballou wasn’t making any jokes, but he wasn’t talking to Nick anymore, either.

  Even Jayna Layne looked pissed, which meant that Nick was now in zero danger of being cougared to death in the laundry room.

  But there were too many fryers to worry about anything else.

  The belt spun, inexorably.

  Birds came and came and never stopped coming. One, three, nine, a hundred, a million, a million and one. Every night Nick lay exhausted in his room, pale and worn, too tired to even shower.

  Or cash in on Petal’s hug.

  Paralyzed with options while ghost-fryers cruised behind his lids.

  1. Text Petal; ask her out

  2. Don’t text Petal; don’t ask her out

  3. List balls (sold as pair only) on eBay

  Amanda lay on the floor under his bed, holding her nose while playing Unmanned Freedom, guiding a Predator drone as it rained missiles on xTremists cowering in rugged tribal areas. She already had over a million Coalition Points, six Bribed Mullahs, and a full BeardTrimmer upgrade.

  “Nick? Yuk? You smell bad?”

  He wiggled his gamy toes. “I know, Boo.”

  “No? You really? Don’t?”

  “Just play your game, okay, Martha Stewart?”

  “You’ll never find a? Girlfriend? Like that?”

  “What makes you think I want a girlfriend?”

  Amanda laughed, then got a perfect score on the Walled Compound bonus round.

  Fine.

  On Saturday Nick went to the mall and bought new sneakers, new pants, a Mortis Trigger tour shirt, and some cologne: Ready, Steady, Go! for men.

  Sunday came and sped by. Nap, play Resident Medieval: Gunning for Monks on the Palmbot, nap, nod at the Dude, consider homework, nap, consider calling Petal, white sandwich, white sandwich, white sandwich. Midnight.

  And then Monday rolled around again.

  Punch in, punch out.

  Straight to the Blue Room and straight back.

  Chicken heads, chicken legs.

  Gut bucket, feather pile, beak stack.

  Tiny little hillocks of claws.

  Scary.

  Especially after Petal, wearing a black skirt and matching lipstick, cornered him at school.

  She never wore red skirts. She never wore lipstick.

  Nick’s head went blank again, smooth, empty. A flat white glacier of nothingness. Not even a woolly mammoth buried in the permafrost.

  “Hi,” she said quietly.

  It was a brilliant tactic. Short. Friendly but noncommittal. Giving up no information while still requiring a response.

  “Hi,” he answered.

  Less brilliant. Somew
hat uncreative. Verging on plagiarism.

  Petal didn’t seem to notice, eyes practically twice their normal abnormal size, hair pulled away from her face with cheap barrettes, wearing a black T-shirt that had MISSION OF BURMA written on it in duct tape.

  Her black skirt had rips in it (there was skin underneath there).

  Her black tights had rips in them (there were thighs underneath there).

  Her black boots were scuffed and ancient (Feet? He was good with feet).

  “Um, Nick?” she said, snapping her fingers. “Anyone home?”

  “Yeah. Of course. Where else would I be?”

  “You seem kind of out of it.”

  “Oh, no. I’m in. Way in.”

  Students milled around them, heading to class, oblivious.

  Petal crossed her arms and looked down at her cowboy boots. “You know Sherm Crothers? Who works in frozen foods?”

  “Who?”

  “The fat guy in the hard hat who always tells us to shaddup?”

  “Oh. Yeah. So?”

  “Last night he had to be dragged off the main floor.”

  Nick leaned closer and lowered his voice.

  “Wait, why?”

  “No one knows, but we all saw him attack Duff for, like, nothing.”

  Duff was an ancient janitor who had been at Rebozzo’s since before the Romans invented aqueducts. He’d probably ridden out the Flood in his mop bucket.

  “No way.”

  “Yeah, and Mr. Crothers was going crazy. Guys were hitting him with tools, trying to hold him down, and he didn’t even seem to feel it.”

  “Wow.”

  Petal reached out and took Nick’s hand.

  Hers were small and cool.

  His were big and damp.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  The bell rang.

  They were now both totally late for class.

  Her: AP chem.

  Him: history. Or wait. Maybe biology. Either invertebrates or the British Invasion.

  As if it mattered.

  He couldn’t think at all, suddenly full to the eyebrows with heavy, useless oil.